On 2-3 May 2024, Mr. Paisan Rupanichkij, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Thailand, on behalf of the Permanent Secretary (ASEAN Senior Official - Thailand), headed the Thai Delegation to the 26th ASEAN-India Senior Officials’ Meeting (AISOM) in New Delhi. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Albert Chua, Permanent Secretary of Singapore, and Mr. Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs of India.

At the meeting, Thailand highlighted key areas to take ASEAN-India relations forward, namely (1) seamless connectivity, including physical, trade, digital, and people-to-people, through concrete projects; (2) sustainable development, by working towards achieving the SDGs, and engaging with India under existing mechanisms such as the ASEAN Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Dialogue (ACSDSD) located in Bangkok; and (3) tangible cooperation under the framework of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), including promoting synergies and complementarities between ASEAN and other regional organizations to deepen the connection between South Asia and Southeast Asia. Thailand will be hosting the 6th BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok in September 2024. On its part, India reiterated that ASEAN lay at the heart of its Act East Policy and expressed readiness to intensify ASEAN-India cooperation to deliver benefits to the people in areas such as trade, tourism, education and capacity-building, innovation and the digital economy as well as promoting peace and security in Asia as a whole.

On this occasion, the Deputy Permanent Secretary, along with other ASEAN Heads of Delegation, paid a joint courtesy call on H.E. Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India. The Deputy Permanent Secretary also met bilaterally with Mr. Dammu Ravi, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs of India, to exchange views on how to enhance Thailand-India economic cooperation, including through regional economic groupings, to achieve the trade target of USD 35 billion by 2027.